September, 2011

Vann Molyvann is not just Cambodia’s most revered architect, he is a national icon. His work includes Independence Monument, the Olympic Stadium, Chaktomuk Theater and many, if not most, of Phnom Penh’s landmarks.

It doesn’t take an architecture aficionado to appreciate the creations of architect-urbanist Vann Molyvann, many of which are on permanent, and prominent, display around the capital.

To the Western eye, trained on skyscrapers and shopping malls, the designs of Molyvann are a delightful departure. He’s known as the star of New Khmer Architecture, a period in the 1950s and 1960s that was at once experimental and practical, monumental and whimsical.

“Style is not just something you stick on the outside. Neo-Khmer architecture draws on real needs,” says historian and architect Helen Grant Ross. “There is something very human about it. It’s not at all like fascist monolithic architecture, and it is very Cambodian in the sense that it is very low key. It doesn’t use luxurious materials. It’s really quite modest.”

The Cambodia Daily’s program to distribute mosquito nets to needy families recently came to an unexpected end. In a half-page notice in today’s paper, Bernie Krisher, the newspaper’s publisher, offers some details on the campaign’s demise.

The immediate reason that prompted the decision to terminate the campaign was the refusal of the Embassy of Cambodia in Tokyo to continue placing our mosquito net charity boxes on its consular counter where tourists and travel agencies come to obtain visas and had been generously contributing to this program. The decision to return the charity boxes was made by Cambodia’s ambassador to Japan, Hor Monirath, the son of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. His reason was that the mosquito net charity boxes competed with the charity boxes of the Cambodian Red Cross, which is headed by the wife of Prime Minister Hun Sen. An appeal to Prime Minister Hun Sen to reverse this decision received no response from him.

An American couple traveling through Thailand stumbled upon an antiques gallery in Bangkok, where they “fell in love” with a bas relief reportedly acquired from the Baphuon temple at Angkor Wat.

The couple had doubts, of course. Was it authentic? And if it was, how would they get it past customs? The dealer assured them that the statue was real, that papers were easy to forge, and that clearing U.S. customs would be a breeze. (The dealer did it all the time.) The couple also, apparently, felt the mildest pangs of a moral dilemma, which they quickly concluded were unwarranted.

The remaining questions we had were moral. Selling, importing and exporting antiquities is not illegal in Thailand, as long as they are not Thai antiquities. That said, to virtually all developed countries ban the trade. Though the Vatican, British and French have plundered many of the world’s treasures, such plundering is no longer in style. Though they are no longer plundering, they are not returning their ill-gotten gains. This may not be a bad thing, as one could argue they are safer in the museums of Europe and America than in their original countries. I cannot argue with that, if safety and preservation is concerned, a museum in France, or even my living room, is probably superior to a Cambodian storeroom.

This is, of course, so wrong on so many levels. But it really does beg the question: Can you just walk in to a random antique shop in Bangkok and find genuine looted Angkorean artifacts on sale?

The answer to that question is almost certainly no.

Talesofartifactsmugglingabound on the Interwebs. All of them describe smuggling as, well, smuggling — elaborate networks of insiders and all manner of subterfuge to hide the artwork as it crossed international borders. If it were as easy as waving some fake papers at clueless customs officials, it seems more than likely that the billion-dollar-per-year smuggling industry would have figured that out by now.

Vann Nath’s status has been very changing today (heart beat, tension, oxygen blood rate) and we had to face medical complications. His family and friends keep on standing by his side. Doctor thinks that the situation is still desperate and that such incidents are about to happen in the next days. However, today, situation has been stabilized, his brain activity is a little better, and he begins to breath by himself a little.